Awards salute city teachers who give extra

6 in public schools get $5,000 prizes

York Alternative High School language arts teacher Barbara Elaine Horwick has some of the most troubled students in the city: about 570 inmates at the Cook County Jail.

"They are pretty tough," but "I enjoy what I do," said Horwick, 58, who through horticulture teaches her students to improve language skills in a program she developed. On her own time and dime, she also helps them either get back into school or find jobs.

On Thursday Horwick was one of six Chicago Public Schools teachers to win the Suave Performance Plus Awards, which comes with a $5,000 prize. The awards, created in 1997 by hair-care giant Unilever Home and Personal Care-USA, honor teachers whose efforts extend beyond their job requirements.

The awards are unusual because students from more than 100 public city high schools nominate candidates and pick winners. This year, 716 teachers were nominated.

Another winner, Marlo McManus, 31, is a sophomore geometry teacher at Westinghouse Career Academy in Garfield Park. A former electrical engineer, McManus returned to school to earn a master's in teaching. "A lot of what I did was teaching, and I thought I might get more joy out of it--and I was right--if I was teaching younger students in a classroom," she said.

After school, she helps students prepare for college-entrance exams and is the assistant coach of the boys track team. She also has helped a 17-year-old girl, who is living with an aunt because of her parents' criminal justice woes, make the honor roll and work toward college.

Amonaquenette Parker, 27, is a special education teacher at Manley Career Academy in Lawndale, who after school helps about 15 students learn such skills as taking public transportation and hunting for a job.

She helped one student who lives with her grandmother because her mother is a drug addict go to prom by buying her a dress and other things she needed to attend. Parker said she learned to love teaching from her mom, Marilyn Parker, a teacher with the Chicago Public Schools since 1976.

Gregory Williams, 50, is a math teacher and head coach of the boys track and cross country teams at South Shore High School. When two South Shore students wound up in the criminal justice system, Williams helped them secure legal representation, and both boys are back in school.

Donn Alan Simon, 42, a special education teacher at Foreman High School in Portage Park, started the after-school Photo Club. Members study, socialize and learn photography skills. Much of the equipment is paid for by Simon or with grants he obtained.

More than 100 students participate in the club. "I have a lot of students who think this was the first thing they were really good at," he said.

Marianne Doulgeris, 33, who teaches French at Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences in Mt. Greenwood, has coached the academic decathlon team for nine years and started the Drama and Poetry Clubs. This year, she took students to London and Paris.

Doulgeris has taken under her wing an 18-year-old senior who has been in and out of foster homes since she was a child. Under Doulgeris' tutelage, the girl has risen to the rank of third in her class and is applying to colleges.